He had to say every sassy thing worth saying. Before anyone else had a chance to say it.

Especially about politics.

"God made the idiot for practice," Twain famously said. "Then He made the school board."

Twain could never even have dreamed of the Birmingham School Board and that evolution of idiocy. It is the school board of back-room fights, after all. It's the one that hired an in-house lawyer to save on attorney's fees, then forgot to fire its expensive outside lawyers.

Twain, come to think of it, couldn't have fathomed many of our school boards.

The Shelby County board, of course, ignored the advice of its superintendent 20 years ago and put accused molester Dan Acker back in a classroom. Acker, police say, has now admitted fondling 21 little girls.

The Jackson County board decided last week to continue allowing a guy called "Bible Man" to visit schools and preach his own version of the Gospel.

"It shouldn't be the country we live in that the minority forces their rights and beliefs on everybody else," Superintendent Ken Harding said as he explained the decision.

Because in Jackson County, the majority does the forcing.

And in Midfield, the state department of education had to step in to run things after the school board and its superintendent got in such a spat that the system couldn't hire staff to run from day to day.

Mark Twain was right. But what in the name of Huck Finn can we do?

Maybe something. Former Birmingham Superintendent Wayman Shiver has compiled a list of changes he would like to see to laws governing school boards.

If it were up to Shiver:

Board members would have to meet minimum education standards. Call this one the Antwon Womack rule. It would be tougher in practice than principle, but we do know one thing. Uneducated boards of education have brought us misery.

Board members should have a clear definition of their oversight responsibilities. They are policy makers and not administrators.

Board members would be subject to evaluations. Evaluations by the likes of me -- or Mark Twain -- don't count.

Board members would be subject to term limits. In the event their actions "impeded the educational process," they would be subject to recall.

Changes should come in the way board members are selected or elected. That's important in places like Birmingham, where members are elected in districts. Few, Shiver said, have the interest of the entire system at heart.

I know, I know. A former Birmingham superintendent is bound to have a jaded view of school boards. And Shiver does. But he also knows where the land mines lie.

And he is also right. School boards are often too political, too insular, and too erratic.

His ideas for reform may not be fully developed, but they ought to be a place for lawmakers to start.

So far, though, Shiver hasn't found a state legislator willing and ready to take on the local school boards. He'll keep trying. He's always had more perseverance than was good for him.

You know what Twain said about that?

"Perseverance is a principle that should be commendable," he said. "In those who have judgment to govern it."